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Rjukan () is a town in Tinn Municipality in Telemark county, Norway. The town is also the administrative centre of Tinn Municipality. The town is located in the Vestfjorddalen valley, between the lakes Møsvatn and Tinnsjå. The municipal council of Tinn declared town status for Rjukan in 1996. The town is located about to the west of the village of Miland and about to the northwest of the village of Tuddal (in Hjartdal Municipality).
The town has a population (2021) of 3,003 and a population density of .
The town was essentially "built from scratch" due to the industrial developments by Norsk Hydro in the 1910s and 1920s. It got its name from the Rjukan Falls west of the town. At its peak, Rjukan was a significant industrial center in Telemark. It became a World Heritage Site under the name Rjukan–Notodden Industrial Heritage Site on 5 July 2015. The town is perhaps best known for the heavy water sabotage operations at the local Vemork hydroelectric power plant during World War II.
Rjukan does not get any direct sunlight between September and March because the low sun is blocked by the tall
Nettavisen.no. Retrieved 2024-09-20
The Vemork was built between 1907 and 1911, and was at the time the world's largest hydroelectric power plant. A similar power plant was finished in Såheim in 1915. The power plants had a combined cost of more than , the equivalent of two annual national budgets at the time. With the factories, many houses for the factory workers also had to be built, in addition to a train station and a town hall. The town formally changed its name to Rjukan, and in 1920 reached a population of 8,350.
In 1934, Norsk Hydro built a hydrogen plant next to the Vemork power plant. A by-product of hydrogen production via water electrolysis was heavy water. It was the later Nobel Prize winner Odd Hassel who told Norsk Hydro that they were in fact in possession of the only regular heavy water production in Europe. At the time heavy water was believed to be a necessary component of an atomic bomb. When Norway came under German occupation during World War II, destroying this production became an important priority to the Allies. The facilities were sabotaged twice by the Norwegian resistance movement and bombed by allied forces.
After 1960, most of Norsk Hydro's saltpeter production in Rjukan was transferred to factories at Herøya in Porsgrunn.
In 1811, royal geologist Jens Esmark "discovered" the Rjukan Falls, and enthusiastically reported to the Dano–Norwegian King Frederik VI that he had found "the tallest of all known waterfalls, not just in Europe, but the whole world," which was completely wrong. Apparently, his assistant wrongly measured the total fall at tall. In reality, it has a total fall of , with a largest single fall of . Skorga, the tallest waterfall in Norway and the sixth tallest in the world, has a total fall of .
Nonetheless, the valley became a famous tourist sight for the European upper classes. During the 19th century, two inns served Norwegian and international guests. One of these guests was French author Jules Verne, who stayed in Rjukan in 1861 during his travels through Norway. During this time he wrote The Lottery Ticket, an adventure novel set in Telemark. In the novel, he describes the Rjukan Falls as "one of the most spectacular waterfalls in Europe."
In addition to the waterfall, Rjukan had good terrain for skiing, and was a good starting point for hiking on the Hardangervidda plateau and Gaustatoppen.
In 1968, Krokan by the Rjukan waterfall became the Norwegian Trekking Association's (DNT) first cabin. After the waterfall was harnessed for hydropower production, the hut was sold. Today it is re-opened and a part of the Unesco World Heritage site, situated by the main road from Rjukan (Tinn) to Vinje.
Today, tourism to Rjukan is focused on hiking opportunities, the local ski resort (one of the largest in Norway), and the Norwegian Industrial Workers Museum at Vemork. It is also considered one of the best ice climbing areas in Northern Europe because of the large number of waterfalls, and because the lack of sun gives ice consistently.
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